The Carnelian Cube

Fourteen:

But there was no further clue to the possible location of the carnelian cube, or even to the identity of Theo. Harriman, editor. The man was friendly enough. As early as Finch's second visit, the editor led the way to an apartment above and behind the printshop, a place made fiercely gloomy by dark red hangings now faded, and filled with a singular assortment of curios, which ranged from a Circassian sabre and a strip-tease queen's G-string to a stained rope, which Harriman presented as the central feature of a bygone lynching. They discussed poetry with the energetic disagreement of men discovering each other's taste, and Finch found his host had a rather surprising liking for the works of Francis Thompson, Verlaine and the French mystics. As his own dislike of these writers was rooted in a poetically indefensible addiction to the work of Walter Scott, he was being badly defeated in the argument when "the Harem" came in to end things with a meal of pig's feet and hominy grits.

The plain food was good after the elaborate creations of the Colonel's temperamental chef, and the talk was better. For the first time since waking on the hillside above Muscle Shoals he felt at ease, free from the pressure of overpoweringly insistent personalities. It occurred to the back of his mind that if this were a world he had wished himself into, a projection of his own personality, his subconscious must be singularly sophomoric and unselective; and he was moved to wonder whether the discovery of the presumable owner of the carnelian cube were not an indication that he had better start imagining a more scientifically planned cosmos. What would it be like?

"... come from, Mr. Finch?" the Harem was asking to make conversation. "You don't talk like a native Tennesseean."

"I'm not," said Finch. "As a matter of fact, I sometimes think I dreamed myself here."

"Heh." Harriman emitted his short bark of a laugh. "Now you see, Harem, why I done tol' you not to ask questions like that of the Colonel's boys. They might turn out to be Jesse James or Herbert Hoover."

"But, my dear sir—" began Finch.

"Sssh! The Harem has to be disciplined. I picked her right out of a circus, where she was earning her keep cooking spinach for the elephants, and she learned her manners from then. Didn't you, Harem?"

"I'll bust a plate over your goddam head—"

Foiled again. Finch was similarly turned aside with a witticism every time he tried to approach the core of the mystery with Harriman, though the editor invited him again and again to the place when the pressure of events at Pegasus Hall became a little too much. Sonia was not as vigorous in her pursuit as before the race, Finch was glad to observe; perhaps he was no longer in line for the vacant office of lieutenant. But she undoubtedly did possess a form of physical attractiveness that he found it hard to resist, and every now and then she seemed to feel it her duty to turn on the heat, as though to keep her hand in. In fact, it was she who arranged the literary tea for the publication of his book.

When Harriman heard of it and that it was to be held under the auspices of Kretschmeyer & Kretschmeyer, the St. Louis book dealers, he gave his sharp, single laugh, but his only comment was that Finch would soon begin to understand why his own shelves were lined exclusively with the classics. "You know you're a phoney poet, and so do I, but most of those people think they've got something."

"Maybe they have if they can sell their books."

"Yeh. What they usually got is some backer like the Colonel or an old witch with more money than sense. But don't let me stop you. You can read aloud, everybody will clap and the drinks will be on the house."

Finch had no intention of letting it stop him. Kretschmeyer & Kretschmeyer were booksellers, after all; they had placed an order for his collection of poetic montage, and he believed he had enough pure scientific curiosity to wish to see the occasion for its own sake, as a visitor to New York might visit Grant's Tomb or some other object that had become commonplace to the natives.

He made the trip on a river steamer with a billiard-room ingeniously mounted on gimbals and gyroscopes which held it steady while the most delicate shots were being executed. But there was no hot water for shaving and the craft was so slow that it was more than fashionably late when he arrived at the Kretschmeyer & Kretschmeyer address. When he gave his name a uniformed negro of immense pomp marched before him past counters piled with cloth to the door of a big reception room, where he was greeted by a worried-looking young man in a tweed suit so fuzzy it looked as though it were being crawled on by caterpillars.

"The name?" he said. "Oh, you're Finch, the guest of honor! Do you know, you're a success already? Charles Sumter Lewis came to your party." He beamed, and Finch searched his memory frantically without being able to find any peg on which to hang the name. "Do you mind giving a reading?"

"Be glad to if you wish."

The young man took his arm. "J'm Kretschmeyer. Of course, they don't really want to hear you read, but it always impresses the reviewers. The first-three-drink-room is this way."

He steered Finch into a small room with a bar along one side, where two or three people gave him glances of cold hostility before rapidly downing the drinks they were working on and proceeding through the farther door into an inner room from which emerged a Niagaralike roar of conversation. A tall girl with a rose in her dark hair came over from a bench to join them at the bar. "Here," said Kretschmeyer, "I'll leave you with Miss Maeder, but I warn you she's a dangerous woman, ha, ha. Miss Maeder, Mr. Finch. The guest of honor. Excuse me."

"What's yours?" demanded the bartender.

"A Manhattan, I think," said Finch.

"No Manhattans," said the bartender. "I refuse to mix 'em; no expression of personality. How 'bout an Iron Maiden or a Cobra Milk?"

"Take the Cobra Milk," advised Miss Maeder. "I'm drinking them. What do you do, Mr. Finch?"

"I'm informed I've just written a book of poems. What do you do?"

"Me?" She laughed as the bartender arranged three glasses filled with a skim-milk colored liquid in a precise row in front of each of them. "Oh, I'm just one of the pickup girls for literary teas. I came down from Chicago for this one. But I'm very original; I just turned down Charles Sumter Lewis. He's here, you know."

"No, I didn't ..." Before he could display his ignorance by asking who Charles Sumter Lewis was, he chose to take a sip of the Cobra Milk. It made spots swim before his eyes.

"You must autograph some of your poems for me," said Miss Maeder. "Aren't these good?" and downed her second drink without drawing breath, "Oh, there's Smith Smith!"

She seized her third cocktail in one hand and Finch in the other, dragging him through the inner door toward a tall young man in a coonskin cap, whose evident effort to look like Abraham Lincoln had failed because his beard grew only in patches.

"Smith," she said, "I want you to meet one of my oldest friends. This is Finch, you know, Smith Smith."

"Glad to know you," said Finch, extending his hand. It was ignored. "Unmutual," said Smith Smith. "Oh, Smith, please—"

"Adamant," said Smith Smith, and turned to grab at a tray of Cobra Milks flanked by hot dogs which a butler was passing.

"What's the matter with him?" asked Finch. "I'd say he had been milking a few cobras already."

"Oh, no, it's just because he's a monoverbalist, and he acts that way since he became famous. Let's ignore him, shall we?"

Finch was about to turn away with her, when his hand was gripped and violently pumped by a cadaverous looking man with thick eyebrows and a nose and chin so prolonged they seemed almost to meet.

"Well, well, well, how are you? I'm simply delighted to see you again, simply delighted," said this individual, and before Finch could reply: "I was talking to my wife about you just last night. How is your new book coming?"

"I'm afraid that—" began Finch, honestly.

"Oh, I understand. Quite, quite, very heavy research and a great deal of writing. Pity the novelists can't take as much trouble. Let's see, what were you going to call it— wait, don't tell ... ah, I have it. 'The History of the Military Button.' I remember that delicious but somewhat grisly anecdote about the two Russian officers and the seagull."

He paused for breath and Finch got in a few words. "I'm really afraid you have the wrong man. I'm Arthur—"

"Of course, of course. Stupid of me. I'd forgotten how modest you can be. Eunice!" He reached around, gripped the arm of a woman with the chassis of a prize pig, and went on: "May I present Arthur Greenspan Horowitz, the author of that remarkably fine work on the hagiography of Salome, which is all the more remarkable for betting couched in the form of—"

Before the introduction could be completed, another grip on Finch's arm pulled him away from the couple, leaving the man with the bushy eyebrows lecturing happily to empty space. Miss Maeder seemed to have disappeared, but perhaps that was the effect of the Cobra Milks. Finch perceived that his new conductor was Kretschmeyer. "It's old Cottonhead," he shouted in a voice that would have carried five blocks in the open, but was only a whisper amid the uproar of the literary tea. "Professor of literature at the university, you know. We had to invite him because he's a very influential reviewer, but he's very proud of his memory, and—"

He stopped and turned as he saw Finch's jaw drop and his eyes fix toward the door, through which had just entered a young man without a stitch of clothes, but with a swagger of perfect ease.

"Oh, don't you know him? I'll introduce you. That's Tattingrodt, the novelist. He's a conscientious objector."

"To clothes? I should think that the law—"

"What a romantic old notion! You poets! Do you mind if I offer it to Liam? He hasn't found a theme for his new novel yet. Oh, Liam! This is Arthur Finch, the poet. He's just had the most wonderful idea for a novel, about a law to make people wear clothes. Think of the effect on individuals!"

"Aw, let him go out back and eat what he finds there," said Tattingrodt, in a voice surprisingly high and squeeky for the message it delivered. "T'hell with individuals and society. Me, I write books about common ordinary bums like Jerry the bartender and myself."

Finch regarded him with disfavor. This was the second time he had been subjected to literary courtesy and he load' had about enough of it. "I beg your pardon," he said, "but if you don't mind my mentioning it, aren't your trousers unbuttoned?"

Before the naked novelist could reply, a bell rang violently and Smith Smith ascended a dais at the end of the room, laid a book on the lectern and looked out across the assemblage.

"He's going to read," said Kretschmeyer, above the terrific outburst of handclapping. "I'll call on you shortly. Excuse me." He sidled away through the throng.

The monoverbalist struck an attitude, swung up one arm, and ejaculated:

"See!"

then spread both arms wide and went through a series of movements that might have been those of a bellydance:

"Tree"

and finished by spreading both hands wide and looking up at the ceiling as he cried:

"Free!"

Without the slightest pause the conversation went on as before. Finch looked around as the bell rang again and a man wearing a Roman toga took his place, opened his book amid intense applause, and began to read in a strong Brooklynese accent:

Whether it was the words or the Cobra Milks, Finch found his head slightly swimming as he turned to his nearest neighbor, a man with a neatly trimmed Vandyke. "I liked the monosyllabalist better," he remarked, "but he really ought to confine himself to one word instead of spreading over three or four lines."

"Or a single sound," replied the Vandyke, "with appropriate gestures like o-o-o-o."

Finch glanced sharply at him, but the man in the Vandyke seemed to be taking his own suggestion with perfect seriousness. "Wouldn't it be better still if the sounds were not uttered at all?" he asked.

"Perfectly correct. You have the scientific attitude, which is rare. When you study the science of the mind, you will realize that poetry is a matter of profound emotional and intellectual harmonies for which words make a very poor vehicle."

The Brooklynese poet on the dais was sipping a drink, apparently waiting for the bell to announce another round.

"I wouldn't wonder but what you're right," said Finch. "I'm supposed to be a poet, and I've always found words made a poor vehicle for anything I had to say. I suppose there is somewhere some kind of individual with a fourth-dimensional brain that can pick up directly the harmonies you speak of."

"There is," said the Vandyke, simply. "By the way, I didn't catch your name. I'm Dr. Joseph Dunninger."

"Oh, indeed," said Finch, taking the proffered hand. "I'm Arthur Finch. Dr. Calioster of Memphis suggested I come to see you, though the problem that was perplexing me at the time seems on the way to solution."

"Yes, yes, Claude Calioster. Remarkably strong materializations, though his range of rapports is limited. As a matter of fact—" he looked at his watch, "—I have a few minutes this afternoon, and was just about to leave.

If you care to come along, I can at least give you a consultation."

"Why, I—" Finch was about to refuse, but at that moment his eye turned toward the end of the room and fell on an angular damsel fearsomely attired in a milkmaid's costume, who was apparently arguing with the Brooklyn poet as to who was entitled to the next tolling of the bell. To hell with this party; to hell with this whole ego-Centrist paradise, flashed his thought. Dunninger was at least a psychologist and perfectly right in saying that he; Finch, had the scientific attitude. It was the product of mingled temperament, training, circumstance, choice and experience. If through the carnelian cube or any other means, he could escape, he would return contentedly to his proper business of historical research. Even though it involved nothing more exciting than digging up bits of clay for the glorification of a movie magnate whose ancestors had planted them it was preferable to this.

"Thank you very much. I'd be glad to," he said.